It’s not too often that generations of sports fans are rocked by a passing. The death of MLB legend Willie Mays at the age of 93 on Tuesday did just that.
Mays was a true legend of the sport. More than his 660 career home runs, 24 All-Star appearances and iconic grab in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series; he represented the brand of baseball in a joyous and respectful way.
Since the San Francisco Giants announced the death of their franchise legend, reactions from the baseball world have been both of sadness and celebration for the life that was lived.
Could Mays now be etched in stone as the logo of Major League Baseball moving forward? ESPN baseball writer Buster Olney suggested just that Wednesday morning on “Get Up.”
“He absolutely should be the logo for major league baseball because of that incredible style,” Olney said of Willie Mays.” He hit for average, he hit for power, he could play defense, he could throw, he could steal bases.
If the logo in Major League Baseball was that image of Willie Mays in that 1954 World Series with his back to home plate making that over-the-shoulder catch, all you would need is the silhouette and you would know exactly who that was just like we know exactly who the logo is in the NBA.”
Olney’s reference to the NBA logo comes after basketball legend Jerry West passed away earlier in June at the age of 86. While the Association has never publicly confirmed that he’s its logo, this is widely known.
Related: Heartfelt reactions from sports world to the death of Willie Mays
Willie Mays should absolutely be the MLB Logo
Carl Sagan once wrote that “it has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.” Looking that far back into the eons and cosmos. It really does give you a perspective.
The same thing can be said about using a time capsule and looking back on Mays’ life. He was born in Alabama at the height of the Jim Crow south 66 years after the American Civil War ended.
Mays played for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. He suffered through racism and struggles most of us could scarcely imagine before being one of the first African-American players to suit up in MLB baseball.
On the field, he hit 660 homers while batting .301 throughout one of the greatest careers in the history of Major League Baseball. Mays was a 24-time All-Star, 12-time Gold Glove winner and World Series champion. He’s considered the best defensive center fielder to ever play the game.
Those are the raw stats. They don’t even begin to tell the entire novel of Mays’ extraordinary life.
Much like baseball itself, he’s part of the broader American experience.
“Mays wasn’t just a singular athlete, blessed with an unmatched combination of grace, skill and power,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement. “He was also a wonderfully warm and generous person – and an inspiration to an entire generation.”
These sentiments were echoed among other leaders and former leaders around the United States following Mays’ passing.
Mays lived through the bombings of Pearl Harbor, Hitler taking over Europe and the allies ultimately taking down the axis. He lived through racial segregation, Jim Crow laws, assassinations of huge civil rights figures. On this day, it’s hard to ignore those facts.
Mays was around to see America land on the moon, sends its sons to Vietnam and help tear down the Berlin Wall. All the while, baseball was America’s pastime. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters creating memories in stadiums throughout the country.
“It’s an utterly American game,” documentarian Ken Burns once said.
So is Willie Mays.
He took to the plate against the likes of Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson. He was hitting dingers with Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle and Frank Robinson.
Mays was making fans in rival cities, as evidenced by the outpouring of support Chicago Cubs fans showed inside another historic entity in that of Wrigley Field after news of the all-time great’s passing.
There was no moment of silence. Why would we be silent in celebrating a life that was so well lived? It just wouldn’t have seemed right for someone like Mays.
“They’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”
Terence Mann
That’s Willie Mays. And that’s why he should be the MLB logo.